GAY TRUTH

Larry Lea’s first highly publicized spiritual warfare event at Candlestick Park in 1990 had as one of its goals the expulsion of “territorial spirits” from San Francisco. Going beyond the idea that specific demons are given responsibility in the oppression of individuals, the doctrine of “territorial spirits” maintains that demons are also over geographical areas, as well as national, ethnic or tribal, religious, and even generational groups. According to this view it is necessary for Christians to identify these spirits and expel them. The acceptance of such a doctrine may have a profound effect on the evangelistic tactics and strategy of a ministry. Larry Lea invested millions of dollars in this belief. But there are many other examples that can be cited. Brazilian evangelicals mobilized a national movement and petitioned President Fernando Collor de Mello to remove a day of national homage to a religious statue, saying that their nation is under a curse because of institution alize...

Transsexual advocates follow the course mapped out by their gay predecessors, advancing transsexualism through various media, the American Psychiatric Association, anti-discrimination laws, and the educational system. The predictable outcome is increased acceptance of transsexualism and intense pressure on those who dissent. The momentum of the transsexual movement challenges the church to articulate a biblical response to pro-transsexual arguments. The innateness argument states that transsexualism is inborn and unchangeable, and therefore God ordained. Christians can respond that, as likely inborn tendencies toward addiction or violence demonstrate, what is “inborn” is not necessarily “God ordained,” because human nature is tainted by original sin; further, they can respond that what one feels does not justify altering what one is. The irrelevance argument states that changing sexes is acceptable because one’s sex is only secondary, even to God. Christians can respond that humans are...

Conservative Christians have acquired the label literalists because they accept the record of supernatural events in the Bible as literally true, whereas liberal Christians tend to see those events merely as representations of theological principles. In a different sense, however, both conservatives and liberals could be labeled literalists when they fail to recognize certain expressions in the Bible as figures of speech and instead interpret them literally. Mishandling figures of speech in this and other ways is a common source of faulty interpretations. In his latest book, The Sins of Scripture , 1 liberal theologian and critic of historic Christianity Bishop John Shelby Spong is guilty of such errors, which result in distorted interpretations. Using Spong’s interpretations as examples, this article will examine three common figures of speech and how to understand them correctly. Hyperbole. The first type of expression we’ll look at is called hyperbole , which is an exaggeration ...